


IDK Spooky Stuff

by witblogi



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Buzzfeed Unsolved References, Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural, Fluff, Ghosts, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 13:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16787611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witblogi/pseuds/witblogi
Summary: Sid never thought he’d be stupid enough to make one of his biggest fears a cornerstone of his career, but here he was, going to dusty, dirty, old and abandoned places week after week trying to find proof of the supernatural. Adding Geno into the mix made things a little more complicated, but also good. Good and terrible.AKA IT'S A BUZZFEED UNSOLVED AU AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT YOU CAN KISS MY APPLE TATERS





	IDK Spooky Stuff

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the sidgenophotochallenge on tumblr - originally posted to my weird headcanon blog

**IDK SPOOKY STUFF**

Sid dropped another motion detector and set it with the help of his flashlight, held between his teeth. It was just starting to get dim enough that he couldn’t make out any of the text without a proper light. Fifteen feet away on the other side of the tracks Geno was doing the same thing, looking focused as he placed another device down and waved over it to check it was working. Sid pulled the light out of his mouth and shined it over at him.

“Have you ever thought about what it would be like if we weren’t constantly cold and dirty while doing this?” He called over and Geno smiled but didn’t look up.

“Your show Sid, you want.”

“Yeah. _My_ show.” Sid snorted. It’d been at least a year and a half since it’d just been _his show_. The leaves rustled around him as he stood and took a few steps back to survey their trap.

If anything was going to move in this area they’d see it immediately.

“No ghost trains get by tonight.” Geno said, appearing at his elbow.

Sid jutted out his chin, pressing his lips together flat. “A full train apparition has never been seen, you know that. Let’s just get our footage and back to the house, we’re losing daylight.”

“Eager to go sleep in haunted house? You feel okay? You possess?” Geno mocked, making like he was going to check Sid’s temperature with the back of his hand. Sid ducked out of the way and fiddled with his handheld phone rig. He knew Phil was filming the wide shots of the tracks from a ways away, and their mics were recording. Geno had a dumb sense of humour, it was expected.

He ignored Geno’s genial chirping and started his own recording, speaking to the audience directly, he turned the camera to catch Geno, already watching him. He had an unreadable look on his face - Sid looked up from the camera for a moment to make real eye contact - Geno’s poker face in places like this was impeccable, he had no idea what the other man was thinking.

The case they were on was just outside of Pittsburgh, chilly but beautiful this time of year. There was an old colonial manor house and grounds that were said to be haunted by various spirits carried there by the train that had once run straight through the extensive property. Though the train hadn’t run in years the tracks were still there and visitors to the house said they regularly heard the train whistling as it passed by at night.

“Getting cold out, Sid, we done?” Geno tucked his hands deep into his jean jacket pockets. He cut a tall, sharp figure where he stood, broad-shouldered with his toque tucked low and his jeans rumpled casually over his hiking boots.

“Yeah, I think we’re good here for now. We’ll come back tomorrow and shoot some EVP questioning.” They turned and walked down the tracks, steps noisy in the leaves as they headed back to where Phil was waiting.

“No ghost box?” Geno extended an elbow and jostled him. Sid rolled his eyes.

“The ghost box provides results. The fans like it.”

“Is loud and stupid. Make no sense, not English.” He made a disgusted face at Sid that was as familiar and warm as an old sweater.

“How would you know, eh?” He grinned as G scowled harder, “C’mon Phil is getting that look on his face like he’s going to be late to Skype with his dog again if we don’t hurry up.”

\-----

Sid never thought he’d be stupid enough to make one of his biggest fears a cornerstone of his career, but here he was, going to dusty, dirty, old and abandoned places week after week trying to find proof of the supernatural.

As far as Sid was concerned, ghosts, spirits, and various other malicious beings were as good as proven. He’d always been a fairly superstitious kid, refusing to wash his jerseys when there was a big game coming up, doing all of his daily tasks in a certain order according to him or else melting down for a whole day feeling out of whack.

His mom used to just call him _particular._

But he’d really had his mind made up when he was a preteen attending a boarding school that looked like a castle and was once used as a makeshift war hospital. Some of the shit that happened over his years attending Shattuck just could not be explained.

Students had items go missing when they’d turned their backs for a moment, shadowy figures vanished between the library stacks and Sid himself had had a distressing event with a tube of toothpaste that he preferred not to dwell on.

When injuries made a career in hockey impossible to follow through on, he turned to his second love - filmmaking. Watching stories about people helped him understand the world around him and let him explain himself in turn. 

Film school led to small projects which led to big projects and eventually a job making ridiculous Youtube videos for an internet company in California.

Pretty soon he found himself being coaxed to make videos about things he felt passionate about…and that lead to jumping at every bump in the night and giving his first co-host (an unamused and perpetually exasperated Tanger) a lot of chirping fodder for the rest of time. It was kind of like Youtube catnip apparently - humiliatingly, but seeing his own videos with millions of views made every minute of discomfort worth it.

Adding Geno into the mix made things a little more complicated, but also good. Good and terrible.

\-----

“You need me go first?”

Sid shot a glare over his shoulder at where Geno was standing just behind him, phone cradled in his hand, pointing the camera attachment right at him. He was probably capturing an incredibly unflattering angle that was all nose - because Geno was a dick. A few steps behind them Phil was holding their proper rig, looking as unimpressed as always.

“I hate you.” Sid muttered and took another deep calming breath. There was nothing to be afraid of, it was just a house, a big empty house where nothing could hurt him. He crossed himself quickly with his eyes closed and then threw open the grand front door of the Pittsburgh Manor House.

“Looks nice!” Geno was crowding him now, peering over his shoulder and shining his flashlight into the depths of the house, “kill for place like this in L.A. Worth fortune.”

“Don’t talk about killing,” Sid hissed, stepping gingerly into the manor - he didn’t like the vibes of this place at all, the hair on the back of his neck instantly stood on end. He could feel his pupils dilating to take in whatever scraps of light were lurking in the shadows. It smelled musty - mostly like a house that hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned or lived in for decades, which was exactly what it was.

Geno slipped around him easily, sailing into the drawing room across the creaking hardwood floors and taking stock of the place as casually as a new home buyer.

Phil flipped on the lights in the grand foyer and set his camera down on the nearest side table, sending a puff of dust off the intricate wood inlay.

“I’m going to start bringing our gear inside.” He disappeared out the open door and Sid suppressed a shudder. He refused to look into the yawning expanse of darkness that lay waiting at the top of the large staircase dead ahead of the doors - there would be plenty of time for that.

Unfortunately, there was no real safe place to look instead, the previous owners had clearly liked mirrors - they lined the walls of the space, every few feet another one, their elaborate, gilded frames dulled with more dust. Every shadow and bit of light seemed to bounce back and forth, making even his own movement startling in his peripheral. Sid was already starting to feel the history of this place sticking to his clothes, getting jumpy as shadows loomed in every corner.

“You okay?” Geno had lowered his camera, no longer recording, and was giving him a shrewd look. Sid shook himself, he really had to work on his game face - but then again they paid him to do this because of how piss-his-pants scared he got every time.

“I’m fine. The usual.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked around again. He counted the mirrors this time and acted like he had a handle on his shit. Geno was an old hand at seeing through all of his most patented bluffs though and clicked his tongue chidingly at him.

“Serious Sid. Is just old house. No one here but us.” Geno was close enough now that Sid could feel the heat from his body all along his right side. Sid refused to look at him, heart throbbing traitorously in his chest.

“You always say that.” He always tried to comfort Sid when it mattered, his normal bickering, stubborn persona giving way to the marshmallow soul underneath.

“Because that always truth!” Geno grabbed his shoulder to jostle him until he cracked a smile up at him. “Beside, nothing happen to you, if was ghost. Too pretty.”

Sid’s stomach turned over, one part helpless reaction to flattery and one part thick disappointment. Geno was a terrible flirt and he was definitely just joking, the fans always loved it when they teased each other.

Running a too-successful-for-what-it-is Youtube series with someone you’ve been in unrequited love with since the beginning of time was absolutely garbage, every time.

\-----

Sid and Geno had met one dreary Monday afternoon in a conference room full of a cobbled together group of producers, writers and editors. They were put into teams to experiment with whatever content creation ideas that came to them.

Geno was all legs in terrible jorts, a graphic tee proclaiming something about beer, and a backwards snapback. He had a sly look on his face like he was trying to figure out who best to play dumb foreigner with.

(It was always the interns, _always_.)

It was probably the very first day that they’d had their first argument about ghosts. Sid had staunchly defended his position (“Just because there isn’t evidence yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist - you can’t count out that many witnesses!”) and Geno stood by his (“No. Stupid. No ghost.”). They’d had their coworkers in stitches and tossing around the words “chemistry”.

When it was clear he and Tanger - while still great friends - just didn’t spark together on camera, Geno was the natural replacement. He had an unshakeable ability to believe nothing could possibly be scarier than real-life in-soviet-era Russia and a knack for funny, if weird and distinctly Russian flavoured, quips.

Ever since they’d been stuck spending an excruciating amount of time together in the darkest, creepiest places imaginable. Just thinking about the dolls and spiders on that island still gave Sid chills; not to mention their demon encounters.

They taped together, edited together, answered questions together, traveled together, planned together and explored together. As much as they played up animosity and competition in the show they actually got along really well. Sid had met Geno’s adorable little parents multiple times, and his sister, Taylor, could be regularly found sending Geno Russian cat memes to translate for her.

It had just been a crush originally, but the nature of the show had them working in such close quarters so consistently. The constant contact was like steroids for Sid’s treacherous heart. Somehow Geno became his best friend, and the first person he wanted to talk to in the morning and the last person he wanted to see at night.

\-----

The walkthrough of the manor dragged on.

There were so many rooms full of disturbing little totems left by fellow ghost hunters; weird dolls and pentagrams drawn in the dust on the floor. Geno of course, totally ignoring how creepy everything was, seemed to actually _like_ the place, commenting cheerfully on how nice the house actually was with its high ceilings, how many rooms there were, how a big family could live there comfortably.

They set up their case introduction in the music room, with the derelict piano behind them, mirrors once again all around them. Sid read Geno the history of the house for his reactions, so that they could then intercut his voice over and through other relevant footage. It was routine, something they did so often it usually calmed Sid down, but this time he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. He found himself fighting the nagging urge to look over his shoulder while he was reading.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise then, that the following room tours left him startling regularly, spooked by Phil, and Geno, and his own shadow. Nothing in this house was sitting right with him.

“-Wait. Did you hear that?” Sid stopped short behind Geno on the staircase. Phil’s camera lens redirected its focus on him, Sid ignored it.

“What?” Geno was never tired of his ‘delusions’ or short with him in annoyance. He was always open, welcome to suggestions and ready to talk him off every supernatural ledge.

“I thought I heard- ” Sid looked up at him and managed a crooked smile, “you’re not going to believe me. I thought I heard a train.”

“GHOST TRAIN!” Geno exclaimed and then turned to continue up the stairs, unconcerned, “I hear nothing. Wind probably. If actual ghost train we get footage on motion capture.”

“Yeah,” Sid checked his phone, squinting at its brightness after the dim lighting of his GoPro. “It’s 11:35 right now, for the time stamps.”

Geno hummed in agreement and continued climbing, the old stairs creaking under his weight.

The grand chandelier that was supposed to hang in the stairwell was missing, supposedly used in a hanging many years ago that caused its structural failure that then lead to it falling and crushing another person decades later.

This house had seen some serious shit.

Geno reached a limit with the silence, clearly bored, and started doing a weird approximation of an American accent to talk to the ghosts. His nonchalance never failed to baffle Sid.

“Yo to the ghosts! Are you very well going to give a chat to us?” He always sounded hilariously like he’d been fed through Google translate too many times when he tried to do an American impression. The actual accent was decent - it was his choice of words that was so ridiculous, adding as many extra words as he could fit into any sentence.

“We are the very nice best boys!” Sid began to giggle at that, all of Geno’s words over-enunciated, “You can trust us with all your talk, ghosts.”

“Is there something so funny or wrong about our time here, there, Sidney?” He turned to Sid wearing an expression of absolute serious inquiry which caused both Sid and Phil to start losing their shit together.

“Ghosts are the most serious of businesses.” Geno planted his hands on his hips but before he could say anything else, a sharp floorboard creak rang through the space around them although none of them had moved. The levity of the situation broke immediately. They all looked around in silence but for their breathing for a minute, two. Part of Sid wanted to think it was just the house settling, but some part of him was sure it was something much worse.

“It’s getting late.” Phil murmured just as his camera beeped that its battery had 25% life left. Sid steeled himself for his least favourite part of their on-scene cases.

“Let’s finish up and find a place to camp for the night.”

\-----

The campouts had always been tough for Sid, but worse yet was when they actually had a bed instead of just a floor to sleep on. The first time Sid stared down at a sole double bed for both him and Geno to sleep on for the night, he didn’t know what to think. Everything mostly condensed down to two distinct kinds of dread:

  1. The feeling of knowing you’d be spending a night in an inherently dangerous and unknown situation while likely feeling too tense or fearful to feel comfortable sleeping at all,
  2. Being forced to be in such close and intimate proximity to the object of your affections who is fully oblivious to your feelings about them.



Geno, of course, took one look at the bed and dumped his things to the right side, claiming it for himself. He then immediately stretched out across the entire expanse of the mattress. His ankles hung off the end of the bed, exposing his ‘In Bigfoot I believe’ patterned socks. When he’d found them he’d proudly sent Sid a selfie with them like he was getting on the #Crosboo bandwagon or something.

Sid _loved_ him from head to ridiculous toe and had been suddenly stricken with the conviction that he was definitely going to ruin everything in one way or another that night.

Luckily, nothing really out of the ordinary happened. Sid hadn’t liked it one bit and barely dozed all night - snapping awake every time Geno breathed a little too hard or the building creaked in the wind. He had survived though, and hadn’t even spent the long small hours of the morning thinking about how he even kind of liked the way Geno buzzed as he slept, somewhere between a snore and a purr. Okay, that was a lie, he’d definitely thought about that a lot, mind racing in a screeching loop between their imminent haunting and how soft Geno’s features were in sleep.

If he grew too agitated at any point in time in their spooky campouts, breathing hard with anxiety or turning over and over again to try and settle down, Geno would gruffly - but with genuine concern - always rouse himself enough to check on Sid. He’d make sure he actually still wanted to be there and then usually dropped his head back to his pillow and called him bad names in Russian, muttering about interrupting his beauty sleep.

Sometimes he just rolled over and threw one incredibly long leg or an arm over Sid to keep him still, his warm breath fanning over Sid’s shoulder, heat from his limbs seeping into Sid’s skin and settling his fears. It was always during the calm after those moments that Sid thought _maybe, maybe he could love me back._

\-----

They settled on the master suite for their campout. It was perched at the top of the house with its own access staircase and beautiful architectural elements like the dark beams that ran across the ceiling and large paned windows that overlooked the vast property. It would have been lovely if he hadn’t been told it was haunted by several of the manor’s former owners.

Once all their tripods were set up they walked Phil back out to his car where he - the lucky son of a bitch - got to drive back to the motel and meet up with them the next morning with breakfast from in town.

They climbed all the stairs, back to their waiting nest of camera equipment and settled in for the night. Side by side in their sleeping bags on the ground, lights switched off, Sid felt the familiar dread of anticipation settle in as Geno began to snore.

Hours passed, or minutes. Tree branches waved strange moving shadows across the floor and the gentlest wind rattled the glass panes of the windows. Sid was almost lulled into a nervous doze when the footsteps started.

It was just one at first, easily explained by general creaks and shrieks of the house settling, but then another came, and another. A slow, purposeful climbing of the stairs that filled Sid’s belly with dread. His eyes snapped open but there was only darkness around him and he refused to look over at the opening to the stairs in case he actually did see someone who didn’t belong there.

The footsteps ceased when it sounded like they got to the top of the stairs and that was almost worse, thinking perhaps whatever was with them was just watching, or maybe now gliding soundlessly closer to them.

“Geno,” Sid hissed, squirming a little closer to where heavy human breathing had been regularly coming to his left. Geno murmured indistinctly, face mashed casually into his pillow.

The temperature felt like it was dropping around them, chillier by the moment and Sid’s heart, which had already jumped at the first footstep, began to race. He could barely hear anything over the sound of his pulse thundering in his ears.

“Geno! Do you feel that? D-did you hear the footsteps?” Was he imagining things or was his breath actually fogging in front of him a little.

“Just house, Sid.” Geno muttered and reached out to touch him, probably what was meant to be a friendly pat but Sid managed to catch his hand. He clutched Geno’s hand like a lifeline, warm and alive and real.

The heavy scent of inexplicable perfume tickled his nose, and Sid gulped for air, shutting his eyes tightly, not wanting to see his imminent death. He knew he was holding Geno’s hand far too tightly, folded into his chest.

“Heart beat strong.” Geno finally shifted more, sounding like he was turning onto his side and sliding closer to Sid, “you really scared?”

“Don’t you smell that?” He scarcely wanted to whisper.

“Smell house,” Geno replied, like he had every time they were in one of these situations, “come Sid, need sleep.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon - I really don’t think we’re alone up here.”

“We alone.” Geno said firmly, “don’t want to share. Any ghosts can fuck off.” He raised his voice almost like he was calling out a dare to anything listening. Sid swore he heard a distant door slam. His eyes snapped open but all he could really see was darkness and Geno’s eyes shining in front of him.

“Shut up, what was that?”

“Nothing. Come. Sleep.” Before Sid could react, he was being dragged closer by the hand he still had a death grip on. Geno’s body was warm even through both of their sleeping bags and some of the tension drained out of Sid’s spine at the feeling of being close. All he could hear was Geno breathing now, moving, tucking Sid’s sleeping bag close and wrapping his arm around his waist. All he could smell was the scent of slightly sweaty Geno - no perfume at all.

A large palm cupped the back of his head, encouraging him to tuck his face into Geno’s neck which he gladly did.

“Good. Sleep now. Let me protect. Nothing get you.” Sid took several deep breaths, “Don’t know why you always do this, work self up, stress not good. I’m worry you know.”

Sid huffed a hoarse laugh into Geno’s collar. Geno’s throat bobbed against his cheek as he swallowed.

“I do. Most worry, always. Not want to do if you’re not have fun.” his voice was incredibly soft and Sid blinked into the darkness created by their bodies.

“I do have fun. When we’re together it’s fine.”

“Not fine now, Sid.” He sighed heavily, “sometimes wish we can just prove ghosts real so we stop doing this.” He shifted his legs closer to Sid’s, nylon sleeping bag rustling, “but selfish also. Want never prove ghosts, do this with you forever. Keep close, love always.” he stroked his hand over the soft hair at the back of Sid’s neck.

“Geno-”

“Come Sid, need sleep.” he repeated quietly almost sadly, pulling him even closer. Sid let himself lie there for a little longer, tucked into the bubble of warmth that Geno created for him, thinking over his words. Finally he pushed away and sat up, grabbing his phone and flipping on the light immediately.

Geno squinted at him, hand coming up to block the brightness as best he could.

“Sid?”

“I don’t want to do this right now.” He swallowed, refusing to look outside of the pool of light that Geno was in, his bright spot in the darkness, “I don’t want to tell you that I’m in love with you and it doesn’t matter what we’re doing as long as we’re doing it together - here, in this haunted fucking house. So I’m going to turn off my light, and we’re going to go to sleep and tomorrow morning when the sun is up and we’re on our way home we can talk.”

Geno blinked at him owlishly before a smile started to curl the corners of his lips. He then nodded. Sid turned the light on his phone off and immediately regretted it, the darkness rushing in. He put it aside and slid seamlessly back into the circle of Geno’s arms.

“So brave Sid.” G teased, voice rumbling in his chest. Sid didn’t need to see his face to know he was smirking.

“Shut up.”

\-----

Morning broke as it always did, not soon enough, but welcome relief after an uncomfortable night on a hard floor.

They lazily packed up their gear, shooting texts to Phil about what they wanted for breakfast. Geno looked puffy and tired behind his glasses, and pulled his toque and jacket and boots back on in his usual thick morning silence.

Sid was starting to doubt his own sanity, wondering if what had happened in the middle of the night was actually just a psychotic break brought on by fear. But then as he was struggling into his backpack Geno was there, in his personal space and straightening out the straps for him, carefully righting Sid’s jacket and then meeting his gaze meaningfully.

“Come on, let’s get the fuck out of this shitty place and get something to eat.” Sid said, maybe too loudly, but Geno just grinned in reply and motioned for him to lead the way out.

Somewhere in the middle of his second hash brown patty, scarfed down in their rental car, Geno started speaking English again and began complaining loudly about his work emails piling up while scrolling through his phone with greasy fingers.

Sid smothered a smile, looking out the window in the back seat while they drove the winding path down to where they’d left their motion detectors for the night by the tracks.

Everything was more or less exactly where they’d left it. Phil set about checking and packing up their low light cameras and Geno and Sid crunched down to the tracks to gather up all the detectors they’d laid out.

Geno shot Sid heavy looks as they packed each device carefully back into their padded camera bag compartments - he was clearly waiting for their conversation about as patiently as a lab waiting for dinner.

They were shoving all their gear bags back into the car’s trunk, struggling to Tetris in the tripods when Sid heard it - the train.

He snapped upright out of the trunk and turned towards the tracks below them - Geno and Phil had apparently heard it this time as well, as they paused what they were doing to turn and look too.

Before he could take more than a couple steps back towards the tracks, the leaves started kicking up in a great wind and a steam engine came barrelling through the wooded corridor. It looked and sounded and behaved as real as any other train Sid had ever seen, and in a flash it was gone as soon as it’d come.

“….Did you see that?” he turned to them with breathless wide eyes. Phil was swearing at his phone, he hadn’t been fast enough to catch it - Sid hadn’t even thought of recording it. Geno anticlimactically shrugged.

“Guess tracks not as abandoned as thought.” Sid turned to face Geno squarely, not believing what he was hearing.

“Seriously G? That’s what you’re going with? You just saw a ghost train with your own two eyes and-”

“Saw train, yes. Saw ghost train? No.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

“How can you even say that? You know that these tracks haven’t been used in decades!” Sid could hear his voice climbing higher and higher but couldn’t stop it.

“Maybe someone pull prank.”

“A. Full. Sized. Train.”

“Maybe was illusion, make us think we see something that not there, like mag-” Sid grabbed either side of Geno’s face, careful but firm, pressing his cheeks until his lips pursed and he couldn’t continue.

“I love you. But if you don’t shut up I’m going to leave you here with the ghosts. Let me have this for at least ten minutes.” Geno pulled Sid’s hands away from his face by the wrists, already smirking down at him.

“Oooookay. I don’t even want to know what happened in that house last night.” Phil unlocked the car and climbed in without looking back at them.

“Love me?” he looked smug and sleepy behind his glasses. Lips chapped, and hair a mess, continually and frustratingly skeptical about things that mattered.

“You already know that.”

“Want to hear again. Am science man, like repeated result.” Sid rolled his eyes and pulled Geno’s snickering face into a kiss, his glasses getting wedged awkwardly against their cheeks before they separated.

“Are we going to argue about that train for the rest of the week?” Sid pulled back just enough to let Geno fix his glasses and look down at him, impossibly fond.

“Think we going to argue about train for rest of our lives.”

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone wondering...I am a lowly Boogara - and I'm sure what ever Geno's version of the Hot Daga is is terrible and amazing.
> 
> Thanks to Smoll for the beta, ok hand emoji, raise the roof hand emoji, ghost emoji


End file.
